An interesting video. I guess the only comment I would make at this point that isn’t political is this…
What is happening today is a massive failure of human intelligence. Not the Hamas attack on Israel. Not the paralysis of the US House. Not the inability to make a correct strategic decision (supporting Ukraine against Russia and – as one author put it – accomplishing the entire NATO mission with one percent of our defense budget) then stick with it…
Any analysis that predominately focuses on how “others” are dividing “us” and making us vulnerable to chaos and facism is ignoring the fact that all of the ingredients required for this stew from hell are entirely home grown. And this isn’t just restricted to the United States. The same pattern is occuring in many modern industrial societies.
All of these circumstances share common traits:
- poor support for education
- a weakened / ignored / compromised professional class of lawers, accountants, judges, etc. which becomes unable / unwilling to maintain a level playing field
- economic inequities that funnel an outsized share of wealth to a shrinking pool of elites
- a growing underclass watching their economic mobility vanish while being fed a filtered / flawed education that denies them the basic financial smarts to improve their own decision making and historical context to recognize bad policies that have failed multiple times in the past to disastrous effect
In some sense, modern technology like social media, the Internet, YouTube and discussion boards have nothing to do with this dynamic. Rachel Maddow has a book coming out October 17 called Prequel that explains how the United States faced a domestic fascist movement leading up to World War II. This movement featured famous Americans and involved groups called “silver shirts” that were organizing to provide local “muscle” to an eventual leadership which actually planned attacks on members of the US Congress – plans that were identified by the FBI a few days before the target date, resulted in trials, only to have the process die when the judge hearing the case died of a heart attack and the DOJ decided not to re-try the case.
Ultimately, ignorance is THE ultimate lever for moving the world. Unfortunately, it’s also the easiest lever to use but only works in the wrong direction – every time.
WTH